Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

React Native for Android

code.facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 248 posts

Re: React Native for Android

#61

Post by cbsmith »

o_____________o wrote: post #58
nabaraz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see some discussion around this as well. I have been playing with Apache Corodova and Windows 10 SDK lately and they look very promising. Being a web developer, I found them to be easy to get started. Are there complex apps built using phonegap/swift/cordova? What are the limitations? I know Facebook tried with a 'web app' approach and reverted back to native solution. But that was years ago.

Using Cordova, you will always be behind any and all Mobile Safari WebKit et al bugs. This not a big deal when pushing layout around a webpage, but it can be crippling for app development as the app grows in complexity and you crave native-quality interactions. Mobile Safari's Webkit implementation has a staggering list of severe bugs. Developing under it can become a nightmare of hacks and backpedaling. Been working…

More accurately: with Cordova, you will always be behind on iOS.

Re: React Native for Android

#62

Post by Wonnk13 »

really excited to dig into this, though i don't know much javascript or React. I'm curious to see how material design comes across in these types of apps and how easily it will be to tell apart a native app and the "react" version.

Re: React Native for Android

#63

Post by matthewrhoden1 »

nabaraz wrote: post #51
jbigelow76 wrote: post #35

Question for everybody doing some sort of cross platform mobile dev. How common is it to have NO experience with a platform's native libraries? In other words you didn't go from ObjC or Java to React Native/Cordova/Xamarin to try and re-use code but because you know JS or C# and weren't concerned about learning the native platform. For any that started out with no native platform knowledge did you start to dip into i…

I would love to see some discussion around this as well. I have been playing with Apache Corodova and Windows 10 SDK lately and they look very promising. Being a web developer, I found them to be easy to get started. Are there complex apps built using phonegap/swift/cordova? What are the limitations? I know Facebook tried with a 'web app' approach and reverted back to native solution. But that was years ago.

Sworkit was supposed to be an example of a complex app for ionic, not sure what else is out there. I've used that app and can say it seems pretty solid (no crashing, locking up my phone, etc.)

http://blog.ionic.io/built-with-ionic-sworkit/

I did a pet project using the vibration feature and it worked pretty well, but haven't tried on an iphone.

I can't speak for pushing the limits of the hardware though.

Re: React Native for Android

#64

Post by mbrock »

Kwastie wrote: post #18
icpmacdo wrote: post #6

The general feeling on HN is that it is better to focus on Native development on both platforms because Cordova hybrid apps have a overall bad user experience. Is this still the case with React Native or is it becoming the most effective option?

An app built with React Native is indistinguishable from a "real" native app, unlike cordova apps it doesn't run in the browser (or in a webview).

That's not categorically true.

For example, I believe that both the navigator components for React Native in iOS currently suffer from either bugs or performance issues. The more native one has an open issue related to UI flicker, and the JavaScript-based one drops frames when subviews are complex.

That statement might not be true tomorrow or next week, because the ecosystem is developing quickly. Generally I am very happy with React Native.

Re: React Native for Android

#65

Post by msoad »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #35

Question for everybody doing some sort of cross platform mobile dev. How common is it to have NO experience with a platform's native libraries? In other words you didn't go from ObjC or Java to React Native/Cordova/Xamarin to try and re-use code but because you know JS or C# and weren't concerned about learning the native platform. For any that started out with no native platform knowledge did you start to dip into i…

To my experience if all your apps do is showing tables of information and forms to put the information back in (classic WinForms app) any of the cross-platform stuff will work for you. Obviously React is rendering in native and I would prefer it.

But if your app is more advanced like a drawing app you should not use these cross platform stuff.

Re: React Native for Android

#67

Post by rail2rail »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #15
jbob2000 wrote: post #9

Yes! I've been working with React-Native on a side project for a few weeks now. WHAT A GODSEND! Before this, I was using Titanium, which is heavy, slow, and difficult to integrate with. React-Native felt like home. On a related note; Why is it up to Facebook to develop something like this? Why aren't Apple and Google making it this easy to develop apps? ObjC is a nightmare, 90% of apps out there don't need that level…

Why aren't Apple and Google making it this easy to develop apps? Apple has no incentive to make it easier for app developers to port their code to other platforms.

Has Apple ever chosen a non-native app for its annual design awards?

Re: React Native for Android

#69

Post by s73v3r »

The article also seems to indicate that their repository strategy is not properly set up for something like this.

Most people, I think, would initially set up a separate repository for iOS and for Android, given that they are different codebases, and you wouldn't want commit history pollution. But if you're planning on reusing a lot, like in this project, it might make sense to have them both in one repo. Or have a third for shared code, and include that in each individual one?

Re: React Native for Android

#70

Post by lewisl9029 »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #35

Question for everybody doing some sort of cross platform mobile dev. How common is it to have NO experience with a platform's native libraries? In other words you didn't go from ObjC or Java to React Native/Cordova/Xamarin to try and re-use code but because you know JS or C# and weren't concerned about learning the native platform. For any that started out with no native platform knowledge did you start to dip into i…

Not sure how common it is, but I've worked on a few Cordova apps and have no native experience whatsoever.

I have ran into some roadblocks that required stepping into native development to fix up issues with Cordova Plugins (specifically for background operation), but I suspect that won't be necessary for a large majority of apps out there.

Personally, I find the Hosted Web App spec a very promising alternative to Cordova for app development with web technologies. You simply use the open web APIs (notifications, geolocation, camera, etc) for features that would normally require messing with plugins in Cordova, and they would just work.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Marketplace/Options/Host...

It's such a shame that the biggest players (Android and iOS) probably have no plans to support it natively since it would greatly reduce developer lock-in. In the meantime, the ManifoldJS project can provide Cordova-based polyfills for your Hosted Web App, but then you'd have to resort to messing with plugins all over again for the only two mobile platforms that really matter...

http://manifoldjs.com/

Post reply on HN